


Happens to All of Us

by greenbucket



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dogs, M/M, Medical Professionals, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 03:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbucket/pseuds/greenbucket
Summary: It’s a beautifully sunny day when Jack thinks,oh, fuck it, let’s go to Tooting Common.





	Happens to All of Us

It’s a beautifully sunny day when Jack thinks, _oh, fuck it, let’s go to Tooting Common._

On a usual kind of day, Jack tends to take Isaak on his walks to Figges Marsh. It’s a bit dodgy from time to time, and not the most exciting stretch of grass to walk around as a human, but Isaak seems to have a grand old time sniffing around, meeting other dogs, getting petted by innumerable awed and delighted children, and catching a ball when Jack remembers to bring one along. It’s also close enough to Jack’s place that he can tolerate the occasional shame of taking his dog on walk in his pyjamas for the length of time it takes to get there, do a round, and come back.

Tooting Common, by comparison, is a bit of a trek. Not a _trek_ by any means, but a little out of the way. Jack has taken Isaak there a good few times but it’s very big and Jack works probably longer hours than he should at St George’s fiddling around with the MRI machines – or being a ‘medical physicist with specialisation in magnetic resonance imaging’, if that’s what you want to call it.

But it’s a lovely day and so, armed with a ball for Isaak and some water and snacks for them both, Jack doges past his housemates in the living room, ensures Isaak’s leash is actually fastened because he’s not making that mistake again, and they’re off.

Other than passing by a Tesco Express, a dry cleaner, and a café or two, the walk to the Common itself is fairly standard: Isaak tries to eat rubbish a half dozen times and for a bit just sits in the middle of the pavement, baking in the sun and seemingly uninterested in walking a step more before suddenly he’s shooting off again. Jack mostly listens to podcasts he’s managed to cram into the 0.1KB of memory he has left on his ancient phone when walking, but the day is so pleasantly summery that he can’t quite make himself shut out the world like he usually does.

It turns out to be a very good decision, as he and Isaak have been having a good stroll through the grass and Isaak has barked politely at a squirrel or eight when out of nowhere a dog bounds over to sniff and bark and yip at Isaak. It’s a husky too, though a little smaller than Isaak and more of a russet colour, and on a seemingly infinite extendable lead as Jack doesn’t see its owner anywhere. Isaak goes wild with delight and Jack’s arm nearly gets pulled out of its socket as the two pounce on and twirl around each other.

It’s a heart-warming sight, especially since at the shelter Jack had been told Isaak had a ‘troubled past’ and would have some issues socialising with others; Jack very valiantly had managed not to respond to the poor eager volunteer with a ‘me, too’, but had taken Isaak home and smothered him in love the best he could as soon as he could. Jack wants to take a photo of Isaak’s first real friend, but he thinks his phone would combust in his hand with disgust for his lack of care for storage capacity if he tried.

The other thing that stops him is another human being yelling, “Oh, Jesus Christ, I am _so_ sorry,” and then slamming bodily into him from behind.

Jack’s balance keeps him upright just long enough for him to look down and realise the other dog’s lead has somehow wrapped around his legs in all the joyful yipping and prancing before he’s flat on his front in the grass, the weight of whatever poor soul has been wrapped up with him pressing him into the still-damp ground. All the breath has been knocked out of him and he’s pretty sure a ladybird is trying to crawl into his gasping mouth.

He’s still got a grip on Isaak’s lead, though; take that, Wandsworth Council.

“I am so terribly sorry,” the person crushing Jack’s lungs is saying, wriggling and flailing to get them untangled from each other, “She’s not usually like this, I swear. Upik, _stop_.” The person sounds posh, a public school richness making Jack’s hackles rise. _Fucking gentrifiers_ , Jack thinks. He moved here for undergrad when it was undesirable and found it to be just fine, thanks, and now here they are, popping cafés up left right and centre and pushing people out when they can’t even keep their very extending leads in hand.

Soothingly, Jack can feel what feels like Isaak’s wet nose nudging at his temple, in a way that’s probably just curiosity but he’d like to think is concerned. “I’m all good, boy,” Jack tells him via the ground. And then to the person atop him, “Don’t worry about it, it happens to all of us. Any luck getting free?”

“I think so.” The person kicks Jack very hard in the ankle and that seems to do the trick; there’s a snap of the lead rolling back up. Still, getting up with a huff doesn’t prevent another, “Really, I’m so awfully sorry.”

Jack takes a moment to breathe some oxygen back into his system and then rolls over. The sun is blinding and, God, he must be getting old if he can already tell how his muscles will hurt from just that little tussle for the next couple of days. He sits up slowly, just in case he’s slipped a disc or something now he’s a geriatric.

“Oh, shit,” Jack says. _Oh, shit_.

“Oh no, are you hurt? Upik must’ve just been excited to see another husky, and I’ve yet to figure out this bloody extendable lead so she was off like she was zip-wiring the Grand Canyon.”

The person looking down at him and rambling about the kind of harness a dog would need to zip wire, backlit like some kind of angelic being, is none other than Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy.

Jack has seen Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy a total of twelve times since the new batch of researchers arrived and interacted with him three. Once was a polite nod on the corridor that it seemed the guy was giving to anyone and everyone so as to avoid rudeness to someone important, once was to help stabilise a stack of papers he was carrying, and once when Jack was quite sleep deprived himself and they shared a mutually commiserating look as their shared nearest vending machine took its usual forty seconds to push an item out. After graciously allowing him to go first, Jack had watched as Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy diligently waited for three separate packets of Malteasers. 

All the other times, Jack has been shooting some serious furtive glances the guy’s way because it’s just very hard not to look. When Jack isn’t slightly worried about the purple of the shadows under Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy’s eyes, he’s lost in their blueness and the squareness of his jaw and the way that he looks simultaneously scrubbed clean and like he might accidentally tell a horribly dirty joke to someone’s mother.

And now it turns out he has a _dog_ that he walks on _Tooting Common_ and a matter of moments earlier he was _on top of Jack_ , bare skin to bare skin in the warm weather and it’s hardly ideal but dear God Jack is suddenly very much not complaining. And the poor man is still rambling on, his dog back obediently at his side and watching him adoringly, which Jack thinks is fair enough in all honesty.

Jack gets to his feet. “I’m not hurt,” he interrupts. Isaak licks all up Jack’s arm as a pleased acknowledgement of that.

“Oh, thank God,” says the guy. “Here, Upik, apologise.”

The dog – Upik – growls very loudly and low in her chest. Jack immediately takes back the hand he’d half put out for a pat and the guy looks deeply dismayed. Isaak’s tail is still wagging happily, the traitorous bastard.

“I get that reaction sometimes,” Jack says, because when he would very much like to look cool in front of someone only the most embarrassing things come out. “Most times, actually.”

“I’m sure you don’t,” says Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy charitably. “Upik is just in a bad mood today, I suppose.”

They both look at how she’s gone back to alternating between watching the guy with all the love a dog can hold in its eyes, and interestedly sniffing Isaak head to toe. She looks very contented and calm and neither of them say anything.

“We’d best be off, then,” says Jack eventually. His clothes have little patches of mud from his brief spell on the ground and he’s more than a little mortified by the whole thing and he’s trying very hard not to gawk at Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy looking relatively well rested, out here in the sun rather than the universally unflattering hospital lights. He needs a nice shower and an evening avoiding his housemates in his room.

“Oh!” says the guy, like he expected them to stand there watching their dogs til sundown. “Oh, yes, I suppose so. Sorry again. Your dog is far better behaved than mine.”

“Isaak,” Jack says. Now he’s suggested going, he isn’t sure he wants to.

“Sorry?”

Jack can feel himself flushing. “He’s called Isaak.”

“Oh, I see. Very, uh… Abrahamic.”

It’s painful. Even Isaak looks unimpressed at the mundanity of their conversation. “Thank you,” says Jack.

The guy swallows, nods, swallows again. “Well, like you said. Best be off.”

“Have a good walk,” Jack says, and the guy pulls Upik away from Isaak with a tug on her now much shorter leash to set off wherever he’s going. To some nice place in Tooting Bec at the least, probably.

Jack can’t help feeling disappointed in himself. It can’t exactly be called pining if you hardly know the guy you’re pining over, but Jack doesn’t know what he’s going to do if he sees this guy at work and can’t affectionately refer to him as Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy in his head and fantasise a little because they had a very awkward, embarrassing interaction and the guy didn’t even remember they work at the same place.

Isaak watches them go, a little forlorn. Jack realises he didn’t even get the guy’s name, and feels even more awkward and disappointed for a moment before his mouth is doing its own thing as usual and he’s calling out, “Hey, sorry, what’s your name?”

Extremely Sleep Deprived Biomed Guy turns and says, “Pardon?”

“What’s your–” Jack starts to yell and then feels stupid and half-jogs him and Isaak over to where the guy has stopped. “What’s your name?” he asks, “Only I may be remembering wrong,” – he isn’t – “but you work at St George’s, right?”

The guy stares at him. “Yes, but how did you…?”

Jack tries to think of which of their interactions is the least awkward, or the least pathetic of him to have remembered, and settles on, “I’m Jack. I do MRI stuff?”

The guy blinks a few times and then goes pale then very pink in the space of a second. “Oh my God, no. You’re kidding me.”

“I’m… not?”

“You were there with the vending machine,” the guy says, in tones of deepest agony. “Oh no, you must think I’m a wreck.”

“Not really?” says Jack, unsure. The guy is pretty sleep deprived looking but life is like that sometimes; Jack is one to judge a lot in life, but not on that.

“I got three packets of Malteasers and opened them all then threw them all in the bin,” the guy says, equal parts misery and embarrassment. “Please say you didn’t see that, or you don’t remember it, or something.”

Jack remembers it very clearly. “I thought you had just made a snap decision to live healthier,” he admits. In hindsight, it does make more sense that the Malteaser throwing might have been the result of the evident sleep deprivation rather than a sudden commitment to cutting down on sugar. Jack had been too tired and too focused on getting his own food to think too deeply into it.

The guy looks amazed and then _laughs_. Actually laughs. Jack can’t remember the last time he made someone laugh, and it’s a nice feeling. Isaak yawns in a possibly pleased way.

“All right then,” says the guy, still smiling, “well, I suppose I could have saved my reputation there but now you know the ugly truth: I’m a terrible food waster when I’m tired. Gus, by the way.” He holds out a hand.

Jack shakes it. Gus’ hand is warm, a little rough and a bit sweaty. Jack could probably happily hold it a while longer, but he lets go after a socially acceptable amount of time instead.

“I’ll see you around the vending machine sometime then?” he says. He wants Gus to say _yes_ , and also say _let’s get drinks_ and spend a summer night sharing the town, or something equally ridiculous. Jack doesn’t want to let himself get carried away, but he’s already halfway there, and he’d really like to make Gus laugh again.

“Next time you can stop me throwing away my overpriced chocolate in the bin,” Gus says.

Jack really needs to get out more if the prospect of that has his heart beating a little faster. “No promises,” he says, just to be contrary. Upik deigns to give Jack a dismissive look instead of a growl, plus one last butt sniff for Isaak, and then they part ways.

Jack watches their progress across the grass for just long enough that it’s edging into uncomfortable territory before he turns around to find some shade. He and Isaak have both had quite enough excitement for one day, and Jack is going to need to save up energy and something interesting to say for if (when) he bumps into Gus by the vending machine, or in a corridor, or casually passing by the infectious diseases lab which is not remotely on his beaten track. Speaking of off the beaten track…

“How would you like to come to the Common more often, Isaak?” Jack asks. Isaak turns his head in considering way, the intelligent creature he is, then barks loudly and scampers away: a positive response. Turns out a minute later that someone’s dropped their dog’s treat bag in the grass at some point and Isaak is in raptures helping himself to as many as he likes, but still. Jack will take it.

**Author's Note:**

> Just for clarification, in canon [Upik](http://gruhuken.wikia.com/wiki/Upik) is one of huskies on the expedition and is Gus' fav (and Gus is hers!). Also, I don't know anything about having a dog or working in a hospital, tbh.


End file.
